[fish1050]

Best sound quality isn't always most lovely sound, actually.

So how do you quantify lovely sound? When you hear it flowers start to bloom or something lol!

 

[jotaerre]

Does this DAP have all languages pre-installed? Or it will depend on which region you buy it...

 

[Andykong]

The Course of Vacuum Tubes in Cayin Portable Personal Audio, and a Glimpse to the Future

This article is an English rewritten of a Weibo update from Thomas Liang, CEO of Cayin Audio. He has had some very interesting discussions regarding the positioning and implementation of our vacuum tube DAPs with fellow Cayin users on our Wechat User Groups. To facilitate further discussion, he decided to document the milestones on how and when Cayin has developed our Vacuum Tube products on portable Personal Audio applications over the years. I find the article very useful as I have also been actively interacting with a lot of "headfiers" and we quoted previous Cayin products repeatedly during our exchanges. So I rewrote the article and made it available to all friends and users of Cayin Audio.

Image courtesy of a dedicated Cayin user from our Wechat User Group.

 

[Andykong]

Does this DAP have all languages pre-installed? Or it will depend on which region you buy it...

You will be directed to the language selection screen after system initialisation.

 

[jotaerre]

You will be directed to the language selection screen after system initialisation.

Thanks Andi, now I know I can buy it outside my country.

 

[jaker782]

@alwass89 said:


Currently can sort by "Artist", please add ability to sort by "Album Artist" as well. This is a feature I would like as well.
See picture below.

{Edit:}
On some albums there are artist collaborations and for example 2 artist names are put into the "Artist" ID tag. If sorting by Artist on the player, then the music with 2 artists names are listed separately in the player listing. By being able to have the "Album Artist" ID tag available to sort by, we can add the main artist name into Album Artist ID tag, then if we sort by Album Artist, all songs / music tracks for the album stay together instead of separately. @Andykong, I'm sure you understand this concept.

While we are making feature requests, it would be nice if we could also edit the ID tags in the player for individual songs / groups of songs / entire albums. Since we can't sideload any Android app like ID Tag editor onto N3Ultra, this would be something to really enhance the features of this player.

My N3Ultra will be out for delivery later and I'll be getting it today. Yay!
{/Edit}

@Andykong I also just received the N3Ultra and have similar recommendations to improve use of the stock music player:

• Sorting by "Album Artist" is important since many songs have collaborations that are tagged as "artist featuring another artist", etc. under the "Artist" tag. Capability to sort by "Album Artist" solves this issue. This is especially true for compilation albums.
• Bringing back option to scan short songs is a must! Many albums have shorter segments between songs or "interludes" that are missing using the current scan.
• Allow option to ignore "The" in front of Artist name for alphabetical sorting. For example, "The Police" should be categorized under letter "P" not letter "T".
• Add library category on home screen for "Hi-Res" that only includes high resolution file types/bitrates. This category should be sorted by Artist then Album then Song, not just a listing of all songs which is not that useful.
• Similar to above, there is an option to change database sort option from "alphabetical" to "file format", which only seems to impact the "All" category. This is a good idea, but the "All" category should have capability to list by "Artist" and 'Album" with a toggle rather than just a listing of all songs, which is cumbersome to sort through.
• Add feature to wake screen with double-tap, similar to android based Cayin DAPs.
• Under "Class List" library, in addition to "Recently" category which displays recently played songs, also add "Recently Added" cayegory that lets you view songs recently scanned/added to the library.

Tube mode sounds phenomenal on this DAP... there are just some quirks with the music player that should be addressed to improve the user experience. None of the above requests should be difficult to implement so I am hopefully they can be addressed with a firmware update in the near future.

 

[elig63]

I received it today. Great sound in tube mode. I like classic better.

 

[Uprox]

So how do you quantify lovely sound? When you hear it flowers start to bloom or something lol!

Technical characteristics is a first "quantify" filter for choice DAP. Next criteria is simple: if I want to listen to further or I want turn off as soon as possible. Because the sound may be too detailed, lifeless, too bassy or too bright and so on.
I'm looking for pleasure when I'm listening to the music, not details or technicalities.

 

[fish1050]

I'm going the opposite direction, moving from a small desktop tube amp to the N3U. I simply don't want to be constrained to a single room when listening to headphones. I want to be able to listen in my study when working, on the sofa, in my cellar, etc.

I think we are spoiled for options, we just need to decide which one works best for each of us at a certain point in time. 3 years ago I was doing only home office, so desktop amplification was enough. Now I'm going to the office, so more mobile solutions are needed.
It's difficult to chase that particular solution and not get swayed when reading about the abundance of products nowadays, so I totally understand your analysis.

My situation is changing in the opposite direction from yours soon. No more traveling to clients locations and needing a small portable DAP to use when traveling. Now I will be retiring and wanting a better home based solution. I will be primarily listening in my home office that I have been converting to a man cave ideal for chilling and listening to music among other activities. Hence deciding on the desktop tube amp over the N3 Ultra. I have really nice desktop speakers that I will be connecting to the tube amp as well. When I start to think about how I want to outfit the cave the desktop tube amp fits the bill alot better.

Yeah the DAP options are becoming a little overwhelming which is why I have always stuck to a strict budget. The N3 Ultra was going to be the first DAP purchase that exceeds that budget and by quite alot at that.

I have a few bluetooth speakers around the house I would like to connect to when I migrate from my man cave so having bluetooth is also a plus. The R4 will apparently be priced at $249 USD which will make it more than 50% cheaper to import than the N3 Ultra. Now maybe I can budget for an even better tube amp.

I am certainly not expecting the R4 to sound as good as the N3 Ultra one to one. Hopefully a desktop tube amp will close that gap to make the difference negligible.

Bottom line the N3 Ultra looks like an amazing DAP and will probably sound sublime. I truly hope you all enjoy your units once they arrive. Who knows maybe I will get to demo one at some point and the temptation will be to great to resist buying one.

Thanks for indulging the confused ramblings of an old man and the wonderful feedback you have all provided. I will still keep an eye on this thread and reviews to see exactly what I am missing out on.

 

[PopZeus]

I have to co-sign the idea that the app should ignore "The" in artist names when sorting by alphabet. It's one of those quirks that felt acceptable from overseas OEMs a few years ago, but is more irritating since many music apps for mobile devices have solved this problem

 

[alwass89]

Someone has raised a similar problem regarding short music files of less than 60 seconds, I have advised him to use Folder view in the meantime, and have submitted a request to add the music scan setup screen back to the N3Ultra, I'll report back if I receive confirmation from our Software Engineers

If I understand correctly, you would like to organize all the artist entries by Album instead of by Title? I'll follow up with your first request to find out if it is possible to add a Level 2 category after Artist.

Regarding the display of your thumbnail album art, may I suggest you take out the SD card, perform a music scan without the card, this will wipe the existing index, and then insert the card and search again. It would be even better if you could identify the album art that can't be displayed, copy the specific files to another newly formatted SD card, and test if this will display correctly. I want to make sure this is not a software glitch or card compatibility problem before we dig into the file format of your embedded album art.

You can already organize the artist entries, but album. I want to organize the Artist list by the "Album Artist" tag. Other's have already explained this as well.

Regarding the thumbnail art. I did exactly as you said. Took out SD card, did a music scan. I then inserted a blank card and "set up" this blank card in the player. I then added the AC/DC tracks to this blank card and scanned, and got the same results. I would like to add that it is just the thumbnail that is not working. The album art shows correctly when I play the songs from the album, therefore I do not think it is a problem with the artwork file itself. Again the thumbnail shows correctly on my other HIBY music players.

 

[laleeee]

What is the output power and the output impedance of this dap ?

 

[Xavilaw]

What is the output power and the output impedance of this dap ?

First post of first page has all that info.

 

[DVision44]

@Andykong I'm really enjoying the device but have a question on the software side. How does one sign in to save EQ profiles? I can't seem to find an option to sign in like on the Cayin App. Is it even possible?

 

[laleeee]

how hot are these vents ? if I put it in my pocket, can my pants catch fire ?